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Community Newsletter: Q&A: Help! My PC keeps rebooting every 10 to 20 minutes!
- 5/9/08 1:48 PM
System Reboot due to heat
by viditbhargava - 4/25/08 5:48 PM In reply to: Help! My PC keeps rebooting every 10 to 20 minutes! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Dude...this might be because of overheating of the system. All motherboards have temperature control which saves the system from "burning down". When the temperature of the system goes more than a certain level it shuts down or reboots to prevent any damage to the hardware. I think this might be because your system is old and the softwares running these days require lot more resources. For this, you can check if the CPU fan is working fine and the cabinet fan too. A lot of heat is also produced by the SMPS (the power supply of the system). You can check that too.
power supply?
by sbeaudry - 4/25/08 5:54 PM In reply to: Help! My PC keeps rebooting every 10 to 20 minutes! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
It is probably a power supply problem. If you have added any equipment you may not have enough power. If so you need a larger power supply. Or it just may be going bad and needs replacement.
Two culprits: Virus or Heat
by jazzy5 - 4/25/08 5:57 PM In reply to: Help! My PC keeps rebooting every 10 to 20 minutes! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
There are only two culprits of computer rebooting after some use time. One is a virus, malware or any software taking over your computer. But in your conment you mention you reformatted your hard drive,which kills the theory of a virus or malware. Unless after reformating your hard drive you did not use any firewall to prevent any hacker taking control of your PC again.
My second theory is heat related. When a CPU or PC in general gets to hot it will turns itself off or reboot. So your logical step is look if your fans inside your computer are running. It's the cpu you fan running? How about your case fan? Did you look or feel air moving from your Power Supply? If any of these fans are not working, you found your heat problem and your source of rebooting.
But, what if they are all running? Have you look into dust inside your computer or around your fan? Sometimes the dust bunnies we stop the air flow and stop the cooling of your hardware even if the fans are running. You can buy a can of air compressed in any computer store and blow off those dust bunnies. It's a good idea to use the air compressed can and a vacuum cleaner at the same time. As you spray the air into those hard places with dust, you might want to have the vacuum to pull all the dust out of your PC. This way the dust doesn't move from one place to another inside your PC. Just do not stick the vacuum inside your PC. Remember that vacuum runs with electricity and might create a small magnetic field around and zap your delicated electronic inside your PC.
Another point is there are many software that will monitor your fans speed. Your own motherboad might have one. Just active it or get one of the free software monitors and see if your fans are running at the correct speed. Sometimes the fan is running but it's running in his last leg, not fast enought to cool your computer. So all you need is to replace the fan with a new one and presto your rebooting will stop.
Computer reboot
by terrybrookman - 4/25/08 6:00 PM In reply to: Help! My PC keeps rebooting every 10 to 20 minutes! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
This may be to simple but I had the same problem, a loose power cord. The thing had too much insulation on the computer end so I took a razor blade and sliced off about 1/6 ". That was enough to seat it properly so no more problem. It could also be your motherboard or the reset button on your case, unplug the reset power line at the motherboard, you do not need it anyway.
Good luck, Terry
I have never heard of the operating system causing this problem unless you have a virus.
Something's shorting out...
by 49Gonzo - 4/25/08 6:04 PM In reply to: Help! My PC keeps rebooting every 10 to 20 minutes! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I had this problem also awhile back. I couldn't figure it out, I had done some reconfiguring of my pc beforehand and so I had to retrace my steps. To make a long story short, when I put in my motherboard I had forgot to cover an extra raiser with something and it was shorting out the motherboard whenever the pc was slightly jarred. To remedy it, I just covered the raiser with electrical tape. Luckily I didn't damage anything permanently. Hope this helps!
Could be a failing power supply or possibly a cooling prob
by sdtrott - 4/25/08 6:25 PM In reply to: Help! My PC keeps rebooting every 10 to 20 minutes! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I had this problem once and it turned out to be the power supply, which is a fairly easy item to replace. When the computer is running, it checks the power supply to make sure it is in compliance with the tolerance levels of the computer. If the power from the power supply is not in compliance, the computer shuts down and restarts. Sometimes just cleaning the accumulated dust out of a power supply, particularly around the fan, will improve the performance of the power supply.
You might also check to see if all your cooling fans are working and are not clogged with dust. Basically, anything within your computer that generates heat is going to attract dust like a magnet, and that dust can cause overheating and even short circuit, so internal dusting is an important part of computer maintenance.
Help! My PC keeps rebooting every 10-20 minutes!
by Whiskey1441 - 4/25/08 6:28 PM In reply to: Help! My PC keeps rebooting every 10 to 20 minutes! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Hi,
I go along with the power supply, dust bunnies, bad RAM but I would like to add this - try flashing/updating the BIOS. Check out the following:
http://scan.esupport.com/?r=28&CFID=2852607&CFTOKEN=37107146
Hope this helps!
You have a hardware problem
by brucebabbitt - 4/25/08 6:32 PM In reply to: Help! My PC keeps rebooting every 10 to 20 minutes! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Once you reformat and reload your hard drive and the problem doesn't go away you can count on having a hardware problem.
First thing I would do is make sure that the computer isn't in an area prone to overheating (e.g., near a heat source, inside a cabinet or up against something that is blocking the vent holes.
If none of those is a problem open the case and make sure the fans are spinning. You'll have the one in the power supply, the one for the cpu and possibly others for the case and/or the video board. Replace any that are not working. Most power supplies have the fan built in, so if that one is the problem you should just replace the power supply.
If you're still OK, look for any buildup of dust on any components, in vent holes, etc. and get a can of compressed air or something to blow it out. Actually, I always do this when I open the case: dust is your enemy.
If you still have no luck I would try a different power supply.
If none of the above works, the problem may be in the motherboard and I wouldn't bother fixing it in an older computer such as this. If this computer is meeting your needs you can get a brand new one for a few hundred bucks that should make you happy. However, if you really want to try to fix it cheap you should be able to find a similar motherboard online for $50 or so and try to install it yourself. Even if it doesn't work out you haven't lost much. Good luck.
Rebooting mayhem
by johncon - 4/25/08 6:36 PM In reply to: Help! My PC keeps rebooting every 10 to 20 minutes! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Since it is an older computer the first thing that pops into my mind is the temperature. It appears that your power supply - but most probably you CPU is overheating and turning itself off.
Install this product:
http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php
It is a dynamic little program that will monitor your CPU, chasis, and hard drive temperatures. If you see 60+ Celsius, or over +120 F, your system could be overheating.
Now if your system temperatures are below 60C / 120F, then it is possible your processor itself is damaged. It's happened to me. Very flaky system. It comes down to trial and error but it all points to hardware - CPU / Video Card (but you don't mention one)/ Power Supply (if it's really dusty and the fans are slow) or Motherboard.
Speedfan will help eliminate the temperature question and help you determine your true cause. The good news is that with current PC prices, you can replace your equipment with something more powerful for a small price. Good luck.
Easy
by Busboy2 - 4/25/08 7:08 PM In reply to: Help! My PC keeps rebooting every 10 to 20 minutes! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Try SpinRight 6
http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm
Likely a bad sector...spinright will find and fix it
PC rebooting
by Waynethepain - 4/25/08 7:12 PM In reply to: Help! My PC keeps rebooting every 10 to 20 minutes! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I've just delt with this exact same problem with my pc. I replaced the power supply. That did the trick. Good luck!
rebooting
by dave_2001 - 4/25/08 7:17 PM In reply to: Help! My PC keeps rebooting every 10 to 20 minutes! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
you might want to check you temps on your CPU and the voltages on your power supply as for both of these could cause the computer to reboot or just shut down
Re:Hi. I have a problem with my PC (AMD Athlon 1700+, 256MB
by jrmckenzie - 4/25/08 7:22 PM In reply to: Help! My PC keeps rebooting every 10 to 20 minutes! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
It could be your CPU fan. I just had to switch mine out. My computer would just sieze up or re-boot every few minutes like yours so I took a peak inside the computer and the CPU fan had totally stopped spinning. I couldn't even turn it by hand. In my area Best Buy didn't have it in stock but miracle of miracles Curcuit City did. They didn't havwe the exact same one but what they did have works better (the CPU temp is about 10 degrees Ferenheit cooler now) so that solved that. Also as old as you system sounds like it is it could be the capacitors on the Mo-Bo. If that's the case i hate to say it but that's the big-good-by for your system. I had a similar system that died that way. In 16 years I guess I've seen just about all of the big problems. Anyway I hope this helped.
rebooting
by bobfixit40 - 4/25/08 7:32 PM In reply to: Help! My PC keeps rebooting every 10 to 20 minutes! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
yes it is a hardware problem i would say it is power supply cpu cooling fan simple but to the point.
Computer restarts itself every 10 or 20 minutes
by camille522 - 4/25/08 7:38 PM In reply to: Help! My PC keeps rebooting every 10 to 20 minutes! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I had this problem with my sisters computer and took it to a tech and paid $75 with no solution from him. He suggested buying an new computer. I did some research on the net and found that there are a few things that can cause this. I would first replace the power supply. In my case it worked for me. If not, you may have an overheating problem with the processor/fan, and, worst case is the Motherboard going bad. I hope this helps. Now when someone brings me a computer with this problem, I always change the power supply first. 9 out of 10 times this fixes it.
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